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tv   Fareed Zakaria GPS  CNN  July 17, 2011 7:00am-8:00am PDT

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rally of supporters this weekend after the united states recognized the opposition transnational council as the legitimate governing authority. thanks for watching "state of the union." i'm candy crowley. turn in next weekend for my interview with former minnesota governor tim pawlenty. up next, ""fareed zakara gps."" this is gps. the global public square. welcome to our viewers in united states and around the world. on an important week, we have an important show for you. first up, former treasury secretary lawrence summers on the debt ceiling crisis and on what is really america's most serious crisis, how to boost economic growth and jobs. then new tensions and tempers flaring plup the hot arab summer. we'll talk about syria and egypt
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with experts from the region. another consequence of the recession? green is no longer hot. we'll explain why that could be good. what is the cheapest city for a world in an american ex-pat. we'll get to the debt ceiling in a moment. i wanted to give you my take on something else of importance that happened this week. amid karzai was gunned down by a close family associate. he was hamid karzai's half brother and ran the crucial southern provinces. his death has been described as a huge setback for karzai and the international coalition that is trying to support the karzai government in kabul. let's try to understand why he was such a crucial figure. it provides a window into understanding the future of afghanistan. amid wally carsi karzai was rut
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with troops not supporting his brother, cutting them off from any aid. he gave the american and brid tisch forces information on hostile tribes, provided crucial intelligence on key groups and militants. he was the first afghan leader to begin talking with the taliban about ceasefires and their entry in the government. in other words, he was a practical deal maker. now, he was famous in the west or notorious for the corruption that surrounded him. but corruption surrounded all of the billions of dollars in american and western military aid and spending being brought into afghanistan. everyone in afghanistan was corrupt. amid karzai was an ally and effective deal maker. a journalist recalls he was a wheeler dealer in the classic afghan mode. but if tefs a rogue, he was a loveable rogue who charmed you,
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one way of doing political business in afghanistan. karzai's death reminds us it is the kind of political business he excelled at that we need urgently. that is what will ultimately bring stability to afghanistan, whether the united states has a hundred thousand troops or 50,000, whether it withdraws as a slow or rapid pace. at some point the afghan government will have to make deals with those who wooeled power on the ground. it likely will never work in a country with afghanistan's geography, ethnicity and history. what will work is a political settlement or a series of political settlements supported by the many regional powers that surround afghanistan and have been supporting these groups. amid karzai's deal making would have been a huge help in forging such a settlement. kabul and washington will need a political surge to help replace
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amid wali car sooif. now let's get started. '6. there are 16 days until the united states begins to dedefault on its debt barring a deal from congress. the deal seems to be illusive. politicians can't seem to muster the courage of their convictions to compromise for the sake of the country. to help us put all this in perspective and talk about much more, i am joined by the former president of harvard, the former treasury secretary and director of the national economic council, larry summers. >> good to be with you. >> you were treasury secretary. walk us through what happens if there is an actual default. >> if there's an actual default, the united states does not pay back money, principle and
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interest on its debt. at that point the country is declared to be in default. financial instruments that people hold that have been regarded as safe cease to be regarded as safe. a panic begins on money market funds and many other parts of the financial system and a cascade that makes lehman brothers look like a very small event unfolds. it seems to me that it is an unthinkable financial risk to take. it seems to me, also, important to remember that once that threshold has been crossed, there is an uncertainty premium that will continue for a very long time to come. >> in other words, lit take people a long time to get comfortable again. >> a long, long, long time, and
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that means that the question cannot be how we will have a default, how we will manage a default, how we will prioritize payments. the question has to be what's the formula going to be for avoiding such a catastrophe. >> if there were a default, some people have said, you can imagine the borrowing costs for the united states would go up by one percentage points, 100 basis points, which would add $150 billion to the deficit every year. >> that's a number you could imagine. i am less worried about the borrowing costs and more worried about the disruption as there were runs on banks, runs on money market funds, exchanges face the prospect of collapse. institutions built over decades were swept away.
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as they were swept away, the ability to carry on routine financial business, to clear checks, to pay bills, to meet obligations would be lost. it would be a cataclysm and it would be a totally self-inflicted cataclysm. there are countries in the world where there's an issue of whether they can meet their obligations. there's no question the united states can meet its obligations. the question is whether we will. fareed, the way i like to say it is, my daughters are in college. we can argue about how much they should spend. we can argue about how much i should pay, we can argue about how much they can pay. the only thing you can't really argue about is that we do have to pay the visa bill, our family does.
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and this idea that somehow we cannot pay because we're having a political fight over how to handle the spending and taxing really is an example of democracy functioning in the worst possible way. >> so take me through what you think the calculation is. you were there in the white house, many of the same characters in the republican party. let's talk about what they think -- eric cantor, john boehner, mitch mcconnell say here's the problem, we always get these deals, and the spending cuts never materialize and the tax raises do. so we don't want a deal that sort of promises cuts in the future. we want something that is rock solid now. >> let's begin with the fact that when a democrat left the white house, bill clinton in 2001, and treasury secretary,
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me, left the white house, the country was in surplus and was paying back its debt. and then a set of proposals put forward by a republican president enthusiastically supported by a republican majority in both the senate and the house were passed, and as a result -- >> these are the tax cuts. >> the tax cuts, the iraq war, the prescription drug benefits, huge increases in discretionary spending, much larger than anything that took place during the clinton years. and as a consequence, the economy was in substantial deficit and then the economy was, because of other problems, poised with a bubble for a crash and it then crashed. so they're in no position, i would argue, to lecture others about fiscal responsibility.
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where are we in this debate? the president's health care bill contained very substantial cuts in medicare. the president has even raised the prospect of pushing upwards on the medicare age, something that was unthinkable to many democrats. the president has indicated a willingness to consider changes in social security. a republican like alan simpson who is off the budget commission, has said that it is not the president who is to be faulted for an unwillingness to compromise. there is plenty of movement to entertain spending cuts. the question is whether it's going to be 100% spending cuts of one type or whether there's going to be any balance. it's not that the president and his colleagues have talked about the prospect of raising taxes on
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middle class families. it's not that they've even talked about raising income tax rates. they've talked about eliminating a special tax break for the owners of corporate jets. >> but those are trivial numbers. you'd have to do a lot more than that. >> even though -- you would ultimately perhaps have to do more. but even corporate jets and hedge fund special treatment is too much revenue increase for the congressional majority. i don't think there should be any confusion here about who's willing to walk a mile to compromise so far. the president has shown that in any of a variety of ways, and the president has never said that it's my way or default. the president would be happy to
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see an agreement to move us past the prospect of default on almost any terms. it is the house majority, the republican house majority, that has indicated that they want to use the credit worthiness of the country as a hostage to pursue a particular agenda and to pursue it without compromise. i don't think that's the right way to advance the interests of the country. >> hold that thought, larry. we will be back. more with the former secretary of treasury larry summers. >> the most important thing that makes businesses confident is a thick order book. the most important thing that makes store owners happy is a lot of people coming into their store. introducing the schwab mobile app.
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♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] more people are leaving bmw, mercedes and lexus for audi than ever before. experience the summer of audi event and get over 130 channels of siriusxm satellite radio for 3 months at no charge. you've done racy go daddy commercials before. yeah, but this is over-the-top. thank you. we're here to promote godaddy. not be a part of some crazy stunt. well, we're contractually obligated. [ both sigh ] ♪ go daddy girls coming to set!
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...aaand everybody's staring. ♪ go daddy [ male announcer ] see more now -- at godaddy.com. [ male announcer ] want to pump up your gas mileage? come to meineke for our free fuel-efficiency check and you'll say...my money. my choice. my meineke. we are back talking about the fate of the u.s. economy with larry summers, the former secretary of treasury. larry, you wrote a very important piece in "the "financial times"" where you say
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no matter how this debt issue is resolved, as long as it's resolved, the most important thing is to move beyond it. none of these long-term deals matter. why do you say that? >> the deals matter, but what matters much more is whether the economy grows. do we create jobs for 14 million americans who are unemployed? do we lose a generation of college graduates who don't get the first-rung jobs on which to build a career? do we lose ten years early a large group of workers in their 50s who lose their jobs and never find another one? that's the most important question. that's why we need more demand in this economy. has there ever been a time when, with interest rates below 3%, potholes in roads,
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infrastructure decaying and unemployment rates among the groups that build things close to 20%. there has never been a better time to renew and rebuild our infrastructure. that's an important part of what we should be focusing on. it is every bit as much a deficit when we let our bridges decay, when we fail to fix our roads, when we allow our schools to collapse. when kids have to go to school in classrooms where the paint is peeling off the walls. that is a deficit of maintenance, that is a deficit of preparation for the future in just the same way that borrowing money is a deficit. by addressing that deficit, we can put people back to work. >> and you make the point in the ft that by doing this, by creating more demand, by the government effectively spending
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money one way or the other, you actually make the deficit better because you get gdp growth up which produces more revenues. how sure are you of those numbers? >> the most important determinant of where the deficit will be three or four years from now is how fast the economy grows. if the economy stagnates, no matter how we do with deficit deals, the deficit will be in a terrible place. that's why growing the economy is so important. >> you say you can do it. there are a lot of people who say this is failed keynesian economics. the stimulus was tried, it didn't do much for growth. >> if you compare where the economy is with where it would have been in the absence of stimulus, it is a very different place. make no mistake, a depression was a serious possibility in the winter of 2009. it didn't happen and the recovery act is an important part of the reason why. look at the countries that did
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more to push their economies forward. countries like china, countries like germany, those countries saw larger results. look at the countries that made less efforts to push their economies forward. they have had patterns of much more stagnation. >> britain, for instance. >> looking at britain, for example. we've done this experiment in the united states. for the first term of his presidency, franklin roosevelt focused on getting the economy to grow and the economy enjoyed rapid growth from the floor of the depression. in 1937 he turned his attention to deficit cutting. by the time you got to the 1940 election, unemployment was over 14%. it's very important to avoid an excessively rapid move away from
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maintaining demand in a situation like this. >> what do you say to people who say, well, this is temporary. you're going to do it for another year and then the money will run out. the long-term solution has got to be that you'd stimulate business investment. that you'd stimulate private sector, and to do that, you need businesses to feel more confident and comfortable with the economy and the government. you've heard this many times. >> i indeed heard it many times. the most important thing that makes businesses confident is a thick order book. the most important thing that makes store owners happy is a lot of people coming into their store. so creating customers is the most important thing we can do to make businesses be confident. some people think we should take from workers, take from other people and give it to business. it's very interesting to look at the statistics. if you look at the corporate sector in the united states,
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corporate output is actually lower than it was at the end of 2007. despite that, corporate profits are more than 20% higher, even after adjusting for inflation. so we've done a lot to give more to corporations. that's not the problem, that they don't have profitability. the problem is why should they hire more people if they don't have the demand for their product? why should they invest in new capacity if the factories they have now aren't being fully utilized? that's why for most economists, it comes back to making sure we have enough demand. >> do you think that if we did a major debt deal, would businesses gain confidence? would that be some kind of a powerful boost for the economy? or are you saying even that at the end of the day is not as important as a thick order book?
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>> i think a thick order book is the most important thing. would it help to have a sense that we were on a more sustainable path? absolutely. >> but you say -- >> that's why i hope we will make those long-run decisions. but the most important thing, strengthen today's order book. >> if tim geithner leaves his job as secretary of treasury, would you be willing to do a second round? >> oh, i had my time in government as treasury secretary and at the nec. i'm enjoying the opportunity i have now to reflect in a longer term way. >> you're a young man. >> reflect in a longer term way on the policy choices that we face and the problems that aren't this year's problems, but are the problems like innovation, like education that
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are over the horizon. >> i will code that as having sidestepped the question. larry summers, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> we will be back. but you do it anyway? that's me with the blow dryer and the flat iron until i see smoke. so pantene said, "breakage and split ends? no problem." they gave me this pantene called breakage to strength. [ female announcer ] the keratin protection pro-v system helps prevent then repair split ends. zero fear of breakage, 100% more strength. no regrets, just health. i'm not giving up the heat. [ female announcer ] the breakage to strength system from pantene. ♪ [ cat meows ] ♪ [ whistles ] ♪ [ cat meows ] ♪ [ ting! ] [ male announcer ] travelers can help you protect the things you care about
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world" segment. here in america we've had rare good news this week. >> usa! >> our women's soccer team has been making us proud at the world cup in germany, but, of course, they don't call it soccer over there. it's football. the football that makes the most news is men's club. every summer soccer fans around the world are fixated on their favorite players. these guys are traded from team to tame like tech stocks for many millions. among the players likely to make a move is this man. carlos kevetz. he's an argentinian who left home to play in the premier league. he's one of the world's most lethal goal scorers.
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manchester city pays him $21 million a year, about what derek jeter makes. that's just salary. he has multimillion dollar endorsements. you'll be surprised to know who is trying to buy tebez, a small club from sal palo, brazil, offering $55 million to buy this soccer superstar. that's just the transfer fee. now, tevez may or may not be sold, but it's a huge statement of intent and it's yet another sign of a rising powerful brazil, not just in soccer, but in many fields. for a decade now brazil has been a latin american success story, a record 7.5% growth last year, 33 million people lifted out of poverty in eight years, household incomes growing consistently faster than gdp and more. these are great statistics, often attributed to one man,ing
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lula desilva led brazil for eight successive years. president obama once described him as "the man." his welfare scheme brought prosperity to millions of brazilians, generous pay rises, easy access to credit. he has made brazil a more prosperous place. you could even say it's put an extra singh in the samba moves at rio's carnival. but the party might soon be over. rising agriculture and a surge in commodity prices over the next decade have fueled brazil's boom, but taken the pressure off the government to do structural reforms. economists worry that brazil's growth has turned into a bubble and it is about to burst.
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that's a worrying problem not just for a country of 200 million, but the entire continent that looks to brazil as a model for growth. in the last two weeks, their currency has hit a 12-year high against the dollar, a surge of nearly 50% in two years. that might sound good, but actually making brazilian exports much less competitive. interest rates in brazil have crossed 12%, so borrowing costs are very high. brazil's new president, delma rusef is the country's first female leader. brazil's savings rate is 17% of gdp. that's what developed markets averaged. develop countries usually have much higher savings rate, around 30%. china, for example, is closer to 50%. then there's the issue of what to do with your money. china plows more than 50% of its
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gdp into infrastructure. for brazil, that figure is just 2%. for a developing country that number needs to go up. keep an eye on brazil. lit be the center of the world's attention in three years when the men's soccer world cup arrives at that sport's spiritual home in brazil. then once again, when a real carnival has been planned for the 2016 summer olympics in rio, let's just hope the party is still going strong at that point. and we'll be right back. hey, dad, you think i could drive? i'll tell you what -- when we stop to fill it up. ♪ ♪ [ son ] you realize, it's gotta run out sometime. [ male announcer ] jetta tdi clean diesel. the turbo that gets 42 miles per gallon.
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i'm candy crowley. former news of the world editor rebekah brooks was arrested in connection with british police investigations into phone hacking and police bribery. casey anthony walked free from a florida jail shortly after midnight this morning, about a thousand onlookers stood outside the jail watching as she left with her lawyer. anthony was released 12 days after a jury found her not guilty on murder and child neglect charges in the death of her 2-year-old daughter caylee. the first stage of nato's handover to afghan security forces began today. the handover took place in the bam i don't know province, the
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first of seven areas set to assume responsibilities this month. moammar gadhafi is vowing never to leave his country. his remarks were broadcast at a rally of his supporters after the united states recognized the opposition transnational council as libya's legitimate governing authority. those are your top stories, now back to "fareed zakaria gps". events are heating up once again, throngs of protesters continue to occupy tahrir square and disrupt the political life in egypt. in syria the u.s. and french embassies were attacked by pro-regime forces. what is going on? rami kuri is in the american university in beirut. about as close as an outsider can get. and we have aljazeera's
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cairo-based correspondent. you suggest syria may be going through a slow motion revolution. is it a slow motion revolution or has the regime really been able to shut down this revolution? >> i wouldn't say it's a revolution. i would say it's widespread and growing citizen revolt among many, many people in syria, but there are also many people who still support the president. the regime has pushed back very hard using all kinds of tools that it has available, both military force and trying to co-opt or placate the rebellion and hasn't done very well so far in most people's views. this is a struggle looking more and more like the situation in yemen or bahrain where this may go on for months and months. >> do you see any significance or anything particularly significant in the fact that they unleashed these thugs on
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the american and french embassies? >> this is normal operating procedure in many parts of the world. it's one of the ways the regime sends signals to each other. this happened after the american and french ambassadors went to hama and sent their own signals to the demonstrators. i think we need to see this as diplomacy practiced in unusual ways by both the french and the american ambassadors as well as the syrian government. i wouldn't see this as anything unusual. it's certainly more or less a ratcheting up of the western involvement or intervention in this and, of course, clinton's remarks after that. so this is a very serious escalation of the diplomatic battle that is part of the battle that's going on in the streets, the political battle as well as the physical battles in syria. >> when you look at what's going on in tahrir square, some wheth
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getting tired of the standoff, the reformers, the protesters seem to feel the military has not reformed enough. the military seems to feel the protesters are now just disrupting normal life in cairo. what's happening? >> certainly from the perspective of the protesters who are in tahrir square, who are back in tahrir square, what they're seeing really is two fundamental issues that are at play here. one is whether or not the military leadership of this country understood what this revolution was about. secondly, whether or not the transitional government is actually in power to do anything about it. the key issues for the protesters, there's a long list of issues, specific issues whether it's putting former members of the regime on trial, whether it's raising the minimum wage, whether it's purging the security services from officers
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who may have been involved in the killing of protesters. it was only when the protesters escalated their sit-in, went to tahrir square, went to suez, blocked off some of the roads on some of the major highways, that it jolted the military and transitional government into action. i think they've gained the upper hand. there's no doubt there's a little revolution fatigue in the country, but no doubt this is what's at stake at egypt. >> would bit fair to say, ayman, the luster of the egyptian military is off, that is, it has been tarnished somewhat? there used to be a sense the egyptian military was the pro techer of the nation and the people. now the people, at least some large segment of them find themselves at odds with the milita military. >> absolutely. when the egyptian military took to the streets in february with the departure of president hosni
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mubarak, they were very much welcomed. people put a great deal of hope in the military's capability in leading this transitional process. they now have five months' worth of the military's track record. that has been a great cause of alarm for many people here. on one hand they have almost 11,000 civilians being tried in military court. they have a military that is not necessarily engaged directly with the people. as you said, the military was seen as a protector to the revolution. some are now seeing it as actually being an obstacle to the progress. nonetheless, there are people that are still banking on the military to be the sole institution to shepherd this amid all the insecurity that exists in egypt. >> can you make sense of these two scenarios? if i were to simply ask you what is the state of the arab revolutions, the arab spring, the arab revolt? call it what you will?
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>> well, i think what's really fascinating and historically incredibly important is what you're seeing in egypt and tunisia and syria and other places, civilian authorities, people in the street have become empowered and have challenged and engaged the military-dominated regimes in several arab countries and forced those regimes to respond to them in a political way. what you're getting in the arab world is the first significant civilian challenge to military-dominated regimes and government that is have dominated the modern arab world in 40, 50 years n. egypt lit be 60 years of military-led government. this is an incredibly important turning point where military regimes are being forced to and are, in fact, engaging in political bargaining with civilian-led demonstrators. in some case there is's clashes and they're fighting.
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if you look at syria, for instance, the concession that the regime has made, people may not think they're sin seerks may not think they're enough, but they are making concessions about changing the electoral law, changing the media law, allowing for pluralism. it's a very, very exciting moment to see this process. you have to see it really as the birth of the arab citizen, the birth of arab politics and hopefully the birth of civilian sovereignty for the first time in the modern arab world. >> thank you so much for that wonderful, fascinating update. we'll be back to you for more very soon. we'll be right back. >> we have gotten disenchanted from doing anything about global warming because we realize, damn, it's very expensive.
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just a few years ago all the talk in governmental circles was green subsidies for one environmental effort, tax breaks for the next one. but the financial crisis and economic recession has put a stop to that. one of the first things to get slashed in budget cuts around the world has been environmental initiatives. so today our reliance on oil and
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natural gas is actually increasing. to discuss this seeming paradox and the future of energy in general, we're delighted to have back with us bjoern long berg, the collector of the copenhagen consensus center. in your first book you were described as skeptical. i was watching the bill maher show. he constantly says, look, you're just seeing this crazy weather. there are all these floods, all this hurricanes. obviously you're seeing massive climate change and people want to deny it. so what is the recent evidence? >> a couple things. i'm a skeptical environmentalist because i think we're often told a very one-sided story. global warming is real. we don't have to look for more evidence. it's that we're being told this next hurricane, this next flood is because of global warming. it's true that most of these things are compatible with
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global warming but much more direct reasons for why we get more flooding. fundamentally we've pent up most rivers, dammed them in. when there's enough presentation, they have to flood somewhere. likewise, hurricanes have disappeared or dropped dramatically over the last five years and down to some of the lowest we've ever measured. this doesn't mean there's no problem with global warming. but it means we'll have this, if you have this,cnn effect, that you hear about it, even if this is caused by global warming, the solution to have more rur canes or more floods is to create better infrastructure, to put it very, very bluntly. if you want to help people in new orleans from a hurricane we knew would eventually hit new orleans, it was not to cut carbon emission, but to have better levees. >> people say what you're saying let's just adapt to the fact
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that there's going to be climate change. let's not work to prevent it from happening? >> i'm actually not saying that. i'm saying we should definitely look at adaptation. i think it's immoral not to talk about adaptation. that's the only thing that will matter for the next 20, 30, 40 years. we should also be looking at tackling global warming in the long run. fundamentally we have gotten disenchanted with doing anything about global warming because we realized, damn, it's very expensive. that's why we can't get people to do anything about it. what i'm saying is instead of trying the same approach that's failed for the last 20 years, promise large carbon cuts and not do them, let's try to get technology to become much cheaper. >> you've often said take the money and put it into technologies of the future so we can get to a green place. >> yes. but the trick, though, is there's a tendency for most governments to want to put the green tech money into existing,
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inefficient technology. we see germany being the leader in solar technology in the world which is a little odd, not the most sunny country in the world. they put up lots and lots of inefficient solar panels. they're paying about 100 times more than what they could have bought carbon cuts elsewhere. but it makes them feel good and supports their businesses. i would like to put that money into research into better solar panels. it's not about getting the germans to get 0.1% of their energy from solar, it's about getting everybody to use solar and green technology and that will only happen if the technology is cheaper than fossil fuels. >> what about wind? >> wind is a good example. i come from denmark. we've put up lots and lots of windmills. were felt very proud. they're incredibly inefficient. we put up about 10,000. we cut down all of them and replaced them with more efficient windmills.
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still not efficient. they have to have substantial subsidies yet. wind will definitely be one of the things that could give us a substantial part of our green energy. but again, i want it to be efficient. as long as it's inefficient -- >> what's the mistake governments are making now and how would you rather they do it? right now they're funding existing windmill technology. out want them to place big bets for technologies of future? >> yes. fundamentally if you give $100 billion in solar panels, you probably pay $95 billion in existing en efficient technology. the last $5 billion goes to research and development and new technology. that's great. if what we wanted was to get the new technology that eventually everyone will buy, we should have spend all the hundred billion on research and development. the trick is to not buy technology too early. if you think about computers in the 1950s, if you wanted computers to be cheaper so
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eventually everyone could buy them, the answer was not to promise to buy a computer for every american family in 1960. that would have been terrible. it was not to tax alternative technology, tax the typewriter and hope we get better computers. it was dramatically invested in research and development which is what we did in the space race and the military technology. that actually got us to a place where ibm and apple were making computers that everyone wants to buy. in europe we actually want -- there's a big movement afoot for banning patio heaters. they felt that was luxurious. you're supposed to freeze outside. at the end of the day, it shouldn't be about,000 shall not. you can't do this or that. it should be about efficiency, about not just rich, well-meaning westerners cutting their patio heater but getting to a new technological stage. >> pleasure. we'll be back.
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welcome. i understand you need a little help with your mortgage, want to avoid foreclosure. smart move. candy? um-- well, you know, you're in luck. we're experts in this sort of thing, mortgage rigamarole, whatnot. r-really? absolutely, and we guarantee results, you know, for a small fee, of course. such are the benefits of having a professional on your side. [whistles, chuckles] why don't we get a contract? who wants a contract? [honks horn] [circus music plays] here you go, pete. thanks, betty. we're out of toner. [circus music plays] sign it. come on. sign it. [honks horn] ...homes around the country. every single day, saving homes. we will talk it over... announcer: if you're facing foreclosure, make sure you're talking to the right people. speak with hud-approved housing counselors free of charge at...
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>> pleasure. what's this option? that's new. personal pricing now on brakes. tell us what you want to pay. we do our best to make that work. deal! my money. my choice. my meineke. our question this week from the gps challenge is, what is scotland yard's code name for
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its investigation into phone hacking by british tabloids? is it a, operation weeting, b, operation tweeting, c operation zoomania, d, operation poxlington. make sure to check out our website, the global public square. you'll find smart interviews, takes from some of our favorite experts including myself. you can follow us on twitter and facebook. this week's book is a terrific read. frederick kampi's "berlin 1961." it reminds us of a time much scarier than the present when people feared an all-out nuclear war. the epicenter was berlin. crew chef called it the most dangerous place on earth. it's a fascinating history of a
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now forgotten time and place that was a turning point in the cold war. now for the last look, if all the infighting in washington is getting to you and you are thinking of going to distant shores, we found a study to help you decide where to go and not to go, the cost of living survey says the most expensive place of ex-pat prs the state is not london, zurich, tokyo or moscow, it is the capital city of angola. luanda. exhibit a, a club sandwich and a soda there is said to cost $20.38. looking for something a little more cost effective? the study says your best bet is karachi in pakistan. perhaps that's not the best place to move at this point. for more on the study go to cnn.com/gps. the correct answer to our